Office of the Ombudsman

Jul 1st, 2020

They do a super important job for NZ, protecting our democracy.
Jan 5th, 2020

Sep 5th, 2018

Summary: The Office's investigation processes do not always conform to legal standards. Adversely affected party should be given the last say, but this did not happen to me. Because of this, the Office did not even realise that inaccurate or incorrect information were provided by Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC) to them. Deliberate denial to accept the facts of the case is a natural obstruction of justice. The Office repeated the same mistake HDC made in my complaint. There is no avenue for me to appeal against the procedural irregularity and evidential issues. Background: This is with regards to whether a medical specialist can refuse to respond to a funding provider's **fresh** request for clarifications even if he had earlier submitted long but **incomplete** reports. The specialist's refusal to respond resulted in my funding being declined on the basis that the claims process cannot proceed further. Submitted a complaint against HDC to the Office of the Ombudsmen as they did not get all facts correct (e.g., HDC claimed specialist provided all information even though HDC did not conduct a full investigation) and repeatedly refuse to give me the last say to allow me to correct misinformation. Office investigated and gathered information from HDC, then provided an opportunity for me to respond. I responded. Office gathered further information from HDC but did NOT offer an opportunity for me to respond. Office closed my case with a final opinion. Office confirms that "there is no right of appeal against the Chief Ombudsmans final opinion". Office's justification for not offering me an opportunity to respond: "The reason you were not provided with an opportunity to comment on this extra information from HDC is that, it is not information which substantially changed the Ombudsmans opinion." My reply: The Office "does not care or check whether the "additional information" from HDC and/or the "extra contextual information" is accurate or is even relevant to my complaint." I then proceed to provide 3 out of the numerous reasons supporting my reply. The same mistake made by HDC would not repeat if the Office had given me an opportunity to respond and correct misinformation. The elephant is not in the room if no one chooses to see it. Don't get a blind to review another blind. The end result is the same - the elephant is still not in the room.
Apr 16th, 2023

The OOTO was useful for helping me to get hold of official information under the OIA from an organisation. The person I spoke to for that was reasonable and helpful. Unfortunately my experience with making a complaint about an organisations decision under the OA was not so helpful. After I complained to the OOTO the organisation whose decision I complained about told the OOTO that they were responding to a couple of letters I had written over a month ago. The OOTO told me to wait for the response. I waited 6 more weeks and there was no indication from the organisation of when I would get a response, so I wrote to the OOTO again saying I could not wait indefinitely and I felt the decision needed reviewing regardless of the organisation's response because I had already advocated my case to the organisation between their provisional and final decisions. I did not get much response from the OOTO at this point. I waited 5 months before the organisation responded to my earlier letters and the response was, in my opinion, just a re-hashing of their previous arguments. The very next day the OOTO wrote to me saying that since the organisation had apologised and responded they assumed that my complaint could be closed. I then had to write a further letter with my ongoing concerns about the decision. Several more weeks passed and I received a letter that from the OOTO reiterating points made by the organisation and stating the limited scope of the OOTO to review decisions. I was quite unsatisfied and did not feel that the OOTO had investigated the decision-making process or really engaged with me to fully understand my concerns. I understand that they are a limited organisation that covers a large scope and I am sure that there are other aspects of their role that are very useful, but I did not find my experience of the OA useful at all and I felt that I had been led to believe that there was a system in place for investigation of decision-making processes by this organisation when this did not really eventuate. Perhaps I could have phrased my concerns better/differently, but I am not sure that would have made a difference. They seemed keen to close the complaint and by then I was jaded from going through multiple processes regarding the original issue and felt that further communication with the OOTO at that stage would probably not be useful. I am concerned that it is difficult for members of the public to phrase their OA complaints in terms of decision making 'process' as the OOTO defines it because there is not much guidance around this, and this could lead to issues being overlooked without further clarification.
Apr 19th, 2021